Table 3.

Clinical trials evaluating beta-blockers for the preventing anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity.

Therapies	Cancer	Trial design	Follow up	Results	Ref.
Carvedilol or placebo	Breast cancer	Prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled (n = 200)	6 months	No differences in changes of LVEF or B-type natriuretic peptide were noted between groups. A significant difference existed between groups in troponin I levels, with lower levels in the carvedilol group. Additionally, a lower incidence of diastolic dysfunction was noted in the carvedilol group	Avila et al. (130)
Placebo vs. candesartan vs. metoprolol vs. candesartan + metoprolol	Breast cancer	2 × 2 factorial, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial (n = 130)	3–5 months	No significant effect on change in LVEF with metoprolol vs. Placebo	Gulati et al. (123)
Carvedilol vs. placebo	Breast cancer	Double-blind randomized trial (n = 70)	1 week	No significant reduction in strain and strain-rate parameters upon intervention, but an obvious decrease in these parameters was observed in the placebo arm	Tashakori Beheshti et al. (133)
Carvedilol vs. placebo	Breast cancer	Randomized, single-blind, placebo-controlled (n = 91)	6 months	LVEF did not alter in the carvedilol arm (from 58.7% to 57.4%), but remarkably decreased in the placebo arm (from 61.1% to 51.6%)	Nabati et al. (129)
Carvedilol [6.25 mg/day (n = 41), 12.5 mg/day (n = 38) or 25 mg/day (n = 37)] vs. placebo (n = 38)	Various cancers	Prospective, randomized, double-blind (n = 154)	6 months	LVEF reduced from 62 ± 5% to 58 ± 7% at 6 months in the control arm, however no significant alterations occurred in the 3 carvedilol arms	Abuosa et al. (134)